Teen-age pregnancy is an ever increasing problem. Teen-age parents, surveyed as to why they elected to have a baby, gave such reasons as "babies are so cute," "I wanted attention," "I needed someone to love and love me back." Such romantic feelings toward having a baby almost never include an understanding of the responsibilities imposed by a baby, including loss of sleep, loss of freedom, the need for constant attention, etc. Attempts to educate teen-agers about the trials and tribulations of caring for an infant and raising a child using the traditional educational methods of lecture and readings are rarely successful.
Some resourceful educators, realizing that traditional educational methods are not working, have attempted to demonstrate the care requirements of an infant by requiring students to carry a sack of flour, an egg or a plant throughout an assignment for a period of one to several days. While somewhat exemplary of the care requirements of an infant, such programs do not fairly represent the care requirements of an actual infant and have proven to be of limited success.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,115,948 issued to Burks and 5,094,644 issued to Kelley describe dolls that will wet a diaper after being fed from a bottle. Such dolls are not useful for educating students about the trials and tribulations of caring for an infant as the feeding and wetting cycle is under control of the user. The student, unless under constant supervision by an educator, can feed and change the doll on a schedule selected by the student.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,338 issued to Wexler disclosed a doll which emits a crying sound when a manually operated switch is actuated. The user must then determine which of several actions (e.g., feeding, diaper changing or back patting) will turn off the crying sound. While interesting as a plaything, this doll suffers from the same drawback as the "feed and wet" dolls in that activation of the crying actuation switch is under control of the user. The student, unless under constant supervision by an educator, can activate the switch and change the doll on a schedule selected by the student.
A particularly useful infant simulator system for use in educating students about the care requirements of an infant is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,388 issued to Jurmain et al. and assigned to the assignee of this application. The infant simulator includes such useful features as periodically crying throughout an assignment period on a schedule which is unknown to the student, with the student required to take appropriate responsive action.
It is well known and understood by those who have cared for an infant that it is absolutely necessary to continuously support the head of the infant whenever the infant is held. Infants are simply incapable of supporting their own head in an upright position for several months after birth. Failure to support the head when handling an infant can result in serious injury should the head flop backward.
A number of dolls have been designed with floppy necks, including the psychotherapy doll disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,494 issued to Woods and the training doll disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,351 issued to Gonzalez. However, neither of these dolls provide a realistic bending of the neck, (e.g., the neck of the doll disclosed in Gonzalez is simply pinched by a sew line to permit flopping of the head), nor do they include instrumentation to monitor and record undesirable flopping of the head.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for an improved infant simulator suitable for use in educational programs for educating prospective parents about the realities of parenthood, assisting in the education and training of personnel entering the child-care profession, and assisting in the continuing education of persons working in the child-care profession that realistically demonstrates the head support required by infants and includes a monitoring means for allowing an educator or other instructor to ascertain whether the head has been properly supported by the student throughout an assignment period.